By Carol Sims
WILLIAMSTOWN, MASS. - Norman S. Hirschl, born in 1915, died on
Tuesday, April 2, at age 86 at his home in Williamstown. A
long-time Massachusetts resident, Hirschl had built a house in
West Stockbridge 40 years ago, and lived most recently in an
assisted living community in Williamstown.
Mr Hirschl was an important art dealer who helped shaped the art
business in this country and sold many works of art to public
collections. The gallery he co-founded with Abraham Adler in New
York City in 1952, Hirschl & Adler Galleries, is still a
thriving business today.
"There are two things that sort of visually stick with me,"
remembered his daughter, Elaine Hirschl Ellis of Manhattan. "He
had a birthday party at Chesterwood [in Massachusetts], a
National Trust property. He was 80 years old. He was on the board
and had helped establish their Artist in Residence program. There
were pyramids of paintings on all of the tables, centerpieces.
All of the paintings were in public collections and all of them
he had sold. There were a good 36 or more.
"Also, if you look at the dealers today who are the next
generation, the ones who are now 45-60 years old, I would vouch
that at least half of them had worked at Hirschl & Adler.
They came and worked and he encouraged them. The grounding and
enthusiasm and support he had for the field was incredible. That
is quite a legacy."
Hirschl graduated from Jamaica High School, Queens, where he was
on the football team, and was editor of the school newspaper. He
attended City College, N.Y., and although he never actually
graduated, his interest in journalism continued and he edited the
CCNY newspaper. Later in life, Hirschl taught a course at
Williams College.
Mr Hirschl taught himself about American art and became an expert
in the field over a long career that began in 1938 when he opened
Norman Hirschl Gallery in New York. Mr Hirschl had had some
experience in the art business having worked at the gallery
belonging to his uncle, Frederick Frazier. His first gallery
venture concentrated on American art, something he would return
to later in life. He specialized in Hudson River and Ashcan
Schools.
While his first gallery soon closed, the talented young Hirschl
was hired on as manager John Levy Gallery. He stayed with Levy
from 1941 to 1952. It was while he worked at John Levy Gallery
that he met his future business partner, antiquarian Abraham
Adler. They opened Hirschl & Adler Galleries in 1952.
"Abe's background was more in antiques and furniture; he was
helpful to the Brooklyn Museum of Art in their antiquities
department. My father's interest was in Eighteenth and Nineteenth
Century painting. They handled Corot, Bougereau, Impressionism,
Émile Bernard, the Pont-Aven school," said Ellis. They handled an
occasional Old Master work, but that was rare according to Ellis.
"My father's particular interest was and continued to be American
history. In the 1930s and 40s he focused on the Hudson River
School. He would drive around the country and knew where Cole and
Bierstadt painted. He would pile the family up and whenever we
would go to these places he would relate it to a painting," said
Ellis. "Recently I was in Minneapolis at the Minneapolis
Institute of Art and saw a painting by Thomas Chambers that my
dad had sold. Chambers was active in the 1840s and 50s. It was
that sense of place and who we were as Americans and how
our art reflected our development that interested my father. That
is why he moved on to the Ashcan later," said Ellis.
Mr Hirschl marketed the works of The Eight, especially John
Sloan, and knew Mrs. Sloan. Mr Hirschl sold the work of several
living artists. Ellis remembered him selling the work of Phil
Jamison, a watercolor painter from Pennsylvania and George L.K.
Morris (1905/6-1975) who was an Abstract Expressionist.
"The idea of a creative person intrigued him; he admired and
respected them. He himself wrote music. He wrote show music and
songs for all family events. He could sit down at the piano, as
he frequently did all over the country, and play. It was all by
ear. People would throw dollars on the piano. There was a master
recording made of a broadcast of two songs he wrote for my mom
and me when he returned to Portland, Ore., from the war. It was
made in 1945 by the armed forces radio. When he was in the
Philippines he had written 'I'll be Home Tomorrow Darling' and 'I
Spent Another Day for My Elaine.'"
Among the first exhibitions organized by the Hirschl and Adler
team was "Two Hundred Years of American Art," which featured
works by American painters Thomas Eakins, John Singleton Copley,
Winslow Homer and Edward Hicks. Mr Hirschl bought out Mr Adler
when Mr Adler wanted to retire (about 25 or 30 years ago
according to Ellis; "The direction of the business was going more
towards painting").
Finally, after 30 years with the gallery, Mr Hirschl retired in
1982, but did not disappear from the scene. Mr Hirschl was
president of the Art Dealers Association of America from 1982 to
1984. Abraham Adler died in 1985. Years before, Norman Hirschl
and Abraham Adler had helped found the Art and Antique Dealers
League of America.
In addition to his daughter, Mr Hirschl is survived by four
grandchildren and six great-grandchildren. His granddaughter,
Jennifer Hirschl, has a gallery in London, Hirschl Contemporary
Art, where she sells contemporary British and European art.
